Back in SMA

My Home: Chonitos #5

Olga is my hostess and lives at Casa Dorotea with her son, who goes to university. In addition there are three other “guests” besides me. We each have single rooms and two of us share a bathroom. We all share the kitchen, dining room, living room, patio and roof patio. Olga has beautiful taste and uses a lot of color and plants to decorate the home. I enjoy the home and the people in it. After an 18 day trip to San Luis Potosí I will be back here through new year’s day!

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Holloween and Día de los Muertos

Arriving just before Día de los Muertos was a lovely wake up call to the Mexican culture! They do like there celebrations! And this one is so colorful and engages all ages. Both families and businesses invest a lot of time and energy in preparing. The amount of face painting, and the expert level of results is mind blowing. The ofrendas displayed around the plaza in the center of town were fascinating: one with a full sized Harley Davidson, one to COVID-19, one with many generations of family members, one for the forgotten, one prepared by retired service men in honor of those who have died in the armed confrontations of the past.

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El Charco del Ingenio

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The botanical gardens in San Miguel de Allende requires a steep hike up, so Robin and I took a cab and arrived just as they were opening at 9 am. We paid our $50 MXP (roughly $2.50 USD) entrance fee and headed to the cafe for our morning coffee. The first thing we noticed was the quiet and the smell of clean air! We had a map, but chose to wander about on the various paths, both marked and unmarked, and both listed on the map and not listed on the map. The calm was delicious and the sights remarkable. We didn’t see as many “plants”, but that could be because we are heading into winter!. We did see cactus and spiders! After we had our fill we walked carefully down and back into town. A very satisfying day!

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San Miguel de Allende Jazz & Blues Festival

In it’s 27th year, this festival was one of reasons I initially came to SMA in the fall. I thoroughly enjoyed it two years ago and was grateful to see it survived COVID! There were four concerts over four days: two in the patio of the SMA library and two at the Cuña de Tierra winery about 20 miles out of town. The first night was blues, the second was music of Chet Baker, Frank Sinatra & Louis Armstrong, the third was Funk (the 60’s and 70’s kind), the final concert was renditions of The Beetles music. The musicianship was excellent, the locations delightful, and it filled a sweet spot for me. The last two at the winery included food and wine, which added to the experience. I love how people get to “know” each other. Three dogs were wandering around looking for handouts, and, unlike what I expected, people were feeding and petting them. One ran off with the chicken from my paella! A special experience developed as a group of three outgoing young women in the front courageously engaged the audience. First they shared a bottle of wine with everyone within reach. Then they embarked on getting us all to join them on the dance floor. The sweetest thing was when they supported an older woman with a cane. The young woman gently caressed her so that she could dance without fear of falling. They stayed on the dance floor for many more songs than I did and it was endearing to see how much both of them were enjoying themselves.

I got a kick out of the interplay between the driver of the large bus we took to the vineyard and the roads in the vineyards! As you can see in the photos, the large bus had difficulty navigating the many turns on dirt roads to get to the tasting center. Many times he stopped the bus and said he couldn’t do it. But all we had to do is chant “Sí, se puede” and he would try again. His bus wobbled back and forth and was scratched – but he returned the next day to do it all again!